Mother and son plead guilty in NY mortgage fraud

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The mother and son operators of a New York mortgage brokerage firm and one of their employees pleaded guilty on Friday to taking part in a multimillion dollar subprime mortgage scheme.

Twenty-seven people were charged in U.S. District Court in Manhattan with involvement in the scheme to defraud subprime banks and lending institutions from 2004 through January 2007 by the firm, AGA Capital NY Inc.

The indictments were unsealed last year before the full impact was known of the easy credit and "no document" loans at the heart of the U.S. mortgage crisis. Thousands of Americans with weak credit who obtained so-called subprime mortgages have defaulted on their loans and lost their homes.

Russian U.N. diplomat guilty of money laundering

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Russian diplomat who once chaired a U.N. budget committee was found guilty on Wednesday of helping launder hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and taking a share of the money.

A federal jury in Manhattan found Vladimir Kuznetsov, 49, guilty of a single count of laundering more than $300,000, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Kuznetsov had helped fellow Russian Alexander Yakovlev, a U.N. staff member who handled procurement, pocket illegal payments from firms seeking U.N. contracts. Yakovlev pleaded guilty in 2005 to soliciting more than $1 million in bribes and cooperated with authorities.

Kuznetsov, arrested in September 2005, is a Russian Foreign Ministry official who served as chairman of an influential U.N. General Assembly budget committee. Kuznetsov, who will be sentenced on June 25, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Over 60 to be charged in Zeus Trojan cybercrime

Prosecutors plan to unveil charges against more than 60 defendants allegedly involved in a global cybercrime scheme that used the Zeus Trojan and other Internet viruses to steal millions of dollars from U.S. bank accounts.

The charges will be announced later Thursday by federal and state law enforcement officials including U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in New York, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr, and officials from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, according to press statements from prosecutors.

Three accused of hacking Dave & Buster\'s computers

Three people have been charged with stealing credit and debit card numbers from customers at U.S. restaurant chain Dave & Buster's Inc by hacking into cash register terminals, the Department of Justice said on Monday.

Maksym Yastremskiy, of Kharkov, Ukraine and Aleksandr Suvorov, of Sillamae, Estonia, are accused of hacking into 11 Dave & Buster's cash register terminals to acquire credit card account numbers and card expiration dates. They sold the stolen data to others who used it to make fraudulent purchases, prosecutors said.

The two were charged in a 27-count indictment unsealed in Central Islip, New York, with charges including conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to the DOJ and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

The third defendant, Albert Gonzalez of Miami, is accused in a criminal complaint of wire fraud conspiracy related to the alleged scheme, prosecutors said.

The case is being investigated by the U.S. Secret Service, with cooperation and assistance from the Dallas-based restaurant chain.

Yastremskiy and Suvorov, in or about May 2007, installed at each restaurant a "packet sniffer," a piece of computer code designed to capture communications between two or more computer systems on a single network, according to the indictment.

Russian man tells US court not guilty in global spam scheme

Dec 3 (Reuters) - A 23-year-old Russian man pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges he operated a spam e-mail business that may have accounted for a third of global spam, and he was ordered held without bail.

Appearing in a U.S. court in an orange prison jumpsuit with a lawyer and an interpreter in tow, Oleg Nikolaenko asked a federal magistrate to consider allowing him a form of house arrest in Milwaukee pending trial.

"He is a citizen and resident of Russia and the government believes if released he would seek to return there and the government wouldn't be able to prosecute him," argued prosecutor Erica O'Neil.

Nikolaenko, of Moscow, had no criminal record and had no intention of fleeing, his lawyer Christopher Van Wagner said. His wife was seeking a U.S. visa so she could visit.

U.S. Magistrate Patricia Gorence ordered Nikolaenko held without bail, but said she would consider an arrangement for his release at a scheduling conference to be held December 21.

Nikolaenko was arrested in Las Vegas in early November while attending a car show, and was carrying $4,000 in cash, prosecutors said.